TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (7) TMI 1368
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....l.P. No. 748 of 2025, Sri V. Lakshmi Kanth Rao, learned counsel appearing for petitioner in Crl.P. No. 14216 of 2024 and Sri Arvind Kamath, learned Additional Solicitor General of India appearing for the respondent in both these petitions. 3. Facts adumbrated are as follows: 3.1. The petitioners stood as accused in a predicate offence, which was tried as Spl. C.C. No.123 of 2020. The offence alleged against these petitioners sprang in the aftermath of demonetization. i.e., on 08-11-2016 when the petitioners are said to have exchanged the old notes to new notes for a premium. The facts led to the registration of a crime in Crime No.148 of 2016 against these petitioners and the crime resulted in a trial in Spl. C.C. No. 123 of 2020 and the trial resulted in their conviction. The petitioners have preferred an appeal against the conviction. The same is pending adjudication before the concerned Court. Simultaneously, on the predicate offence being registered in Crime No.148 of 2016, the Enforcement Directorate had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report-ECIR No. BGZO/05/2017 for offences punishable under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA, which comes to be registered as Spl. ....
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....00 of the Cr.P.C prohibits second trial on the same offences. Learned counsel Sri N. R. Krishnappa appearing for petitioner in Crl.P.748 of 2025 would seek to place reliance upon the following judgments: 1. RAZORPAY SOFTWARE PRIVATE LIMITED, ADUGODI, BANGALORE v. UNION OF INDIA reported in 2024(4) Kar.L.J.503. 2. PREM CHAND SINGH v. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH reported in (2020) 3 SCC 54. 3. T.P.GOPALAKRISHNAN v. STATE OF KERALA reported in (2022) 14 SCC 323. 5. Per contra, the learned Additional Solicitor General would submit that same trial for the same offence would mean under the same penal code - the IPC; it would not mean that a person cannot be tried under a different statute for a different offence. He would submit that if the submission of the petitioners is accepted, no person can be tried under different statutes if they are once tried under the IPC. Therefore, would seek dismissal of the petitions. 6. I have given my anxious consideration to the submissions made by the respective learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned Additional Solicitor General for the respondent and have perused the material on record. 7. The afore-narrated....
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....the same offence except with the consent of the Court by which he was discharged or of any other Court to which the first-mentioned Court is subordinate. (6) Nothing in this section shall affect the provisions of Section 26 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (10 of 1897) or of Section 188 of this Code. Explanation.-The dismissal of a complaint, or the discharge of the accused, is not an acquittal for the purposes of this section. Illustrations (a) A is tried upon a charge of theft as a servant and acquitted. He cannot afterwards, while the acquittal remains in force, be charged with theft as a servant, or, upon the same facts, with theft simply or with criminal breach of trust. (b) A is tried for causing grievous hurt and convicted. The person injured afterwards dies. A may be tried again for culpable homicide. (c) A is charged before the Court of Session and convicted of the culpable homicide of B. A may not afterwards be tried on the same facts for the murder of B. (d) A is charged by a Magistrate of the first class with, and convicted by him of, voluntarily causing hurt to B. A may not afterwards be tried for voluntari....
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....lose commission of any offence. The ratio of the said decision, therefore, has no application to the controversy on hand. 10. Equally distinguishable are the remaining judgments cited by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners. Those decisions arose in circumstances where successive prosecutions under the IPC were founded upon the same factual substratum resulting in parallel trial for the same offence. It was in that context, the Apex Court invoked the mandate of Section 300 of the Cr.P.C., and the constitutional protection under Article 20(2) to obliterate subsequent proceedings. The facts obtaining in the case at hand bears no resemblance to both the aforesaid cases. The prosecution, in the case at hand, is not a second trial for the same offence. It is a prosecution under a different and distinct statutory regime founded upon ingredients that are separate and independent from those constituting the predicate offence. Therefore, the said judgments do not lend the petitioners any assistance. 11. To answer the pivotal question whether conviction for predicate offence under the IPC or any scheduled offences, and the subsequent prosecution under the PMLA would amount....
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.... may be liable to be prosecuted for offence of money-laundering under the 2002 Act - for continuing to possess or conceal the proceeds of crime (fully or in part) or retaining possession thereof or uses it in trenches until fully exhausted. The offence of money-laundering is not dependent on or linked to the date on which the scheduled offence or if we may say so the predicate offence has been committed. The relevant date is the date on which the person indulges in the process or activity connected with such proceeds of crime. These ingredients are intrinsic in the original provision (Section 3, as amended until 2013 and were in force till 31.7.2019); and the same has been merely explained and clarified by way of Explanation vide Finance (No. 2) Act, 2019. Thus understood, inclusion of Clause (ii) in Explanation inserted in 2019 is of no consequence as it does not alter or enlarge the scope of Section 3 at all." 15. Therefore, the question whether the petitioner has indulged in dealing with the proceeds of the crime (scheduled offence) is factual and is a matter for trial. 16. The second submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner was that prosecuting the....
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....ant matter is not with regard to her involvement in the offence punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act but raised a question whether she can be proceeded against under the provisions of the PMLA. It has further been argued that petitioner No. 2 was not even named in the FIR registered against her husband and there was no charge against her in the said FIR, even then the prosecution under the PMLA has been launched against her, which cannot be said to be in conformity with the settled legal principles in any manner. 18. As has been said above that the offence under the 2002, Act deals only with laundering of money acquired by committing a scheduled offence. Except that it starts with an offence of possessing, concealing, using, converting or projecting proceeds of a scheduled crime as untainted money, it has nothing to do with the launch of prosecution for scheduled offence and continuation thereof and once a case is registered under PMLA, it is an independent offence. Conviction for a scheduled offence is not a prerequisite for prosecution under the PMLA. Since there is plenty of evidence to prima facie show involvement of petitioner No. 2 in assisting her husba....
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....even if there is no mention of Section 13(1)(e) of the PC Act in her conviction order, still it cannot be said that she has not committed or has not been punished for a scheduled offence. Since, the offence under Section 109 IPC cannot be read or punished in isolation or independently, merely on the basis of omission to mention S.13(1)(e) in her conviction or sentence order, it cannot be said that she has not committed any offence scheduled in paragraph 8 of part 'A' of the 'Schedule' appended to the PMLA. .... .... .... 23. The ld. Sr. counsel for the petitioner referred to para 31 & 33 of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (supra), and submitted that the trial Court has considered entire property of the petitioner as 'proceeds of crime' which is not proper, but since this is a disputed question of fact and has to be decided by the trial Court following the due process of law and is not going to affect the legality or validity of the order under consideration as even a single instance or property is sufficient to prosecute the petitioner under the PMLA, we are not inclined to assess or to hold an inquiry to find out as to which or how many properties are 'proceeds of crime....